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Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The road to KDE LightDM-0.2

Dave Edmunson, one of the lead developers behind KDE LightDM recently published an UPDATE describing some of the features (and shortcomings) already part of the first KDE LightDM release, as well as explaining a bit of what´s coming along in the next few months for the 0.2 release.
Dave explained how some KDM features are still missing in KDE LightDM-0.1, but in turn, some of the screenshots he´s sharing look very promising. Among others, the benefits of using LightDM is, as its name rightly points out, its relatively low weight when compared with GDM or KDM. On top of that, there are obvious gains in terms of looks and flexibility. To give an example, changing the login screen wallpaper and/or welcome image will be very simple. Along the same lines, things like having the login screen and KSplash incorporating the same wallpaper the user has in her/his desktop should be easier. Inconsistencies between login screen and KSplash in terms of resolution and things of the like should also be out of the way thanks to the common QML thread.
Here´s a picture of the Login screen control module, as it looks today. Note these are early days for this piece of functionality, so chances it may not look exactly like this come future releases:
Here are some early ideas as to how the login screen could look using KDE LightDM.
In my opinion, all looking gorgeous and very interesting. Kubuntu could get KDE LightDM by default come the Quantal Quetzal later this October, certainly a feature to look out for!

Isn't this just a login screen tho, which could be an image with two text boxes? That doesn't seem particularily difficult (granted, I've not coded it!!) I'd think the Desktop Manager part of LightDM would be far more interesting to learn about.

Though it's quite a bit more than an image with two text boxes. You start with that and suddenly you need to know screen layouts and power management and giving feedback and models of users and offering shutdown and way to configure everything and configure auto logins etc etc etc.

As a rough guide, there 1500 lines of code for the greeter (to load the QML and set up everything) 800-ish lines of QML per theme and 3000 lines for the config module.

According to the made up nonsense by Ohloh it's worth $50,000 based on project size.